Hey everyone,

Instead of running the normal link love this week, I am going to use my time here to take a one-week break from blogging at Jimvesting. Why? I am really doing this so that I can prepare for my other ventures. Specifically, Bullish Bankers LLC., where I am currently the Chief Executive Officer, is doing a few presentations for potential investors as well as educational executives. Because of this, I am going to need some brief time off to prepare for the event.

Other than this business, I am going to be participating in a large case competition at the Smeal College of Business called “The Next CEO.” I will need to learn practically anything and everything about my randomly-selected company, Unilever, to prepare for this annual competition where I am one of ten finalists. I haven’t had a good chance to sit down and work on this yet, so it’s high time I start as the event is in mid-April.

Upcoming…

We are at a very special mark, the big 50th Sunday Link Love! While it would have been this week, I figured why not hold off a week, do it on Sunday, and make it as big as ever! In addition, right after Sunday’s Link Love I will be launching into the new blog building event where I build a blog in 30 days, using just 30 minutes a day, from the ground up.

We’ve got big things coming to the Net Fool, so stay tuned!
-Jimvesting

Check out our other posts on traffic techniques for more ways to boost your traffic!

When Really Simple Syndication (RSS) was first created, many thought that it was little more than a gimmick… and could never possible prove to be of much value to site owners. As time has gone by, RSS has become an industry standard across the board, and NOT using one can really damage your viability. Not only is it ultra-useful, but it can be pretty darn valuable if used correctly. Let’s walk through some ways you can make your RSS feed bring in traffic!

Getting Your Blog an RSS Feed…

To take advantage of the tricks we outline here, you are going to need an RSS feed. I am 100% behind a service called FeedBurner, which is an RSS service used by almost all of the pros out there. If you already have an RSS feed through your blog system (WordPress, Blogger, MovableType, etc.), it’s really easy to sign up and convert your blog to a Feedburer feed. Best of all? It’s 100% free!

If you own a website that does not have a built-in RSS module, you will have to manually convert everything that you write into an XML format so that it can be picked up by an RSS reader. This is definitely possible, but will be a bit tedious. You can find out how this all works here: About RSS. Once you get your RSS up in basic XML format, again just convert it to a Feedburner feed and you are good to go.

Trick One: The Nature of RSS

Our first traffic technique is to simply use RSS as the tool it was designed to be: an easy way to encourage visitors to come back to your website. I wanted to mention this method because it is simply an obvious way to get users back to your blog. When you own a website, you want to not only be able to get loads of traffic, but you want your users to like your content enough to come back again and again. This is the magic of RSS feeds. They allow your users to have an easy method to see when you are updating your content, and it gives them the opportunity to check out your latest articles any time you add a new RSS feed item to your blog. Use the nature of RSS to promote your blog and add some traffic by getting your users to subscribe and generate hits every day to your website!

Trick Two: Add Your Feed to a Squidoo Lens

Do you have your own Squidoo lens? A Squidoo lens is a lot like a Wikipedia page, but is much easier to get approved… in fact, it’s downright automatic! If you aren’t capitalizing on the SEO and traffic benefits to operating Squidoo lenses, than I want to seriously encourage you to get on the bandwagon and start promoting your material. Don’t know how to profit from Squidoo? Check out this post on Garry Conn about Making Money with Squidoo.

One way to capitalize on your RSS feed is to add it to all of your Squidoo Lenses. Not only is it super easy, a virtual “set and forget” method to traffic, but you can get potential hits every day to your website. The more Squidoo pages you have, the more recurring traffic every day! Here are the steps to add an RSS feed to your Squidoo lens:

1. “Edit” your Squidoo lens
2. “Add Module” to your page
3. Use the “Add Your Own Feed” feature

Once you have added your RSS feed to your Squidoo, you should modify a few of the settings to be able to take full advantage of the SEO and traffic synergies going back and forth. Specifically, you need to go in and edit the title of your new module, changing it to a keyword phrase or a title filled with keywords. Then, you should add a description, and set the RSS tracker to pull your feed as frequently as they allow you to do this. Once you have the settings the way that you feel best with, hit save… and relax, you’re done!

Trick Three: Submit your RSS to Multiple Feed Directories

Much like there are directories around the internet to promote your website, there are also many services that focus on promoting RSS feeds by themselves for added traffic. Because there are literally a hundred services, I am not going to list all of them here. Instead, here are a few of my favorites, and the more popular places:

• RSS Network
• Syndic8
• DayPop
• Feedster
• Feed Beagle

You can get a massive list of places to submit your blog at RSS-Specifications.com, which runs a huge constantly-updating roster of the best websites for submitting your blog and rss feed url. Additionally, you could pay for a service called RSS Submit to do all of this in an automated fashion, which could save TONS of time and effort.

Bottom Line: You can really turn your RSS feed into a traffic goldmine if you use the methods above, and perhaps more useful tricks to getting all you can out of your feed. Anyone have another way to get added exposure with RSS? Post your idea or link below (no spamming!), and we’ll include you in the next update!

-Jimvesting

Everyone knows that Apple has the sleekest software and electronics known to man. Knowing that this is a popular trend, I have finally finished version 3.0 of theNetFool.com!

Everyone brags about their latest “Web 2.0” material nowadays, and I thought that it was a darn shame that I wasn’t ahead of the curve on this one. Because Apple’s Mac computers have always been their for me, I decided that there would be nothing better than to pimp out my blog in style… Macintosh Style!

Why The Sudden Change?

Well to be honest, the old theme was really not doing it for me anymore… and I was getting rather tired of seeing all those crazy colors every day I opened up my laptop to see what was happening in the world. I feel that the more contemporary black and white theme fits my personality a bit better. I’m really interested to see what you guys think of this new change, so please use the comment space below to fill out your thoughts. I know that it is still a bit buggy in some older browsers, but hopefully everything is looking sleek, professional and on the money!

Check Out The List of Changes I Made!

I am hoping to get my blog loading as fast as possible, so I first reduced the quality of all of the images on my blog. By doing this, it won’t sacrifice much in the way of eye candy (I hope), but will add tremendously to your own experience here! Smart move, eh? Additionally, I have gotten rid of that pesky sidebar and easy-to-use subscribe button. Who needs it anyway! Most of that junk just slowed us down.

You may notice that there are no advertisements either. Why did I decide to do that? Well I really don’t need to fill up ad blocks to make money, now do I? Unfortunately, some of my advertisers have been complaining. Usually, I just blow these off and leave them to dry in my Gmail Trash. This time, however, I’m going to let you have a look at what they had to say, it’s too funny!

Alright guys, you know what to do. Let me know if you like it, or not, and why! I’d love to hear your input and adjust my template to better fit what you think I should stick with. Stay bullish on the net!

-Jimvesting